[redwitch]

I was in California and watched in horror as the second plane hit. Until that second, it was a horrible, tragic accident. The second plane made it an incomprehensible act of terror.

I lost two friends on the Pennsylvania flight (it was coming from Boston to California).

My ex-husband worked in the Pentagon. For an entire week, no one could find him (his car was in the Pentagon parking lot, he worked in the east wing). Turns out his friend had borrowed his car and he was on vacation. Rather than going to the Caribbean as planned, he went to NYC to help in the clean up. Tragically, he died of mesothelioma last year. He'd never smoked or worked with asbestos. The doctors felt he probably got it while helping with the clean up.

You didn't have to be in NYC to be indelibly affected by these acts. Like the assassination of President Kennedy, it is something that those who were alive will always remember with a heavy heart.